We all dreamed of flying as kids, and some of us still do. So what could be more natural than the obsession that ski photographers, and European ski-poster artists before them, have always had for portraying skiers in the air?

Images of skiers jumping are invariably exciting, invariably satisfying. Although in a lifetime of skiing, even the most avid jumper spends only a few minutes total in the air, those minutes, those instants of temporary flight have something magic about them.

Skiers jumping have always been a kind of visual cliche. But all cliches, this one included, speak to us directly, quickly, simply. In modern ski movies, we have seen an escalation of ever bigger cliffs that ever braver young heroes "huck themselves" off into space. As one ski buddy of mine quipped, "jumping is easy. It's the landing that gets you."

But "getting air" on skis, as the expression has it, is about much more than taking risks for a cameraman. It's about poetry in motion, it's about our dreams of flying...and here are a few more examples: